Surrey athletes fared well on the trails in Nanaimo Saturday, as the high school cross-country season came to a close with provincial championships.
Held at the Harbour City’s Beban Park, the four races – junior and senior – featured hundreds of the top trail runners from across the province.
In the three lap, 6.2-km senior girls race, a pair of Surrey runners finished in the top 10. Princess Margaret’s Baneet Bains reached the podium in third place, clocking a time of 24 minutes and one second – 43 seconds back of the winner, Kendra Lewis of Van Tech.
In eighth place was Southridge School’s Maya Kobylanski, who was 19 seconds back of Bains. Kobylanski has had an impressive run of top finishes this fall. She won the senior girls race at Fraser Valley championships in Aldergrove in mid-October, and shortly after that was the fastest woman runner at the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation’s annual Great Pumpkin Run Walk – a charity effort held in White Rock Oct. 21.
Other top finishers in Saturday’s senior girls run were Madison Stoochnoff of Holy Cross (13th), and Hannah Milic (20th) of Seaquam Secondary.
The senior boys race, which was also 6.2 km long, was won by Richmond Christian School’s Josh Woolgar, who completed the course in 20:32 – just five seconds after of the field.
The top Surrey runner was Fleetwood Park Secondary’s Jaiveer Tiwana, who was 10 seconds back of Woolgar, while Earl Marriott Secondary’s Jeremiah Mackie was eighth, in a time of 21:09.
Among junior girls, South Delta student Madelyn Bonikowsky – who trains in South Surrey with Ocean Athletics Track Club – was the first to cross the finish line, finishing the two-lap, 4-2-km race in 15:30, which was 18 seconds faster than the second-place runner, Iris Tinmouth of Mark R. Isfeld Secondary in Courtenay.
Bonikowsky was the only Surrey runner to finish in the top 10. Other runners to finish inside the top 20 were North Delta’s Kate Cameron (11th) and Fleetwood Park’s Viviani Li (19th).
A pair of South Delta runners with South Surrey ties – Jonathan Hofer and Jacob Bonikowsky – both placed in the top 5 in the 4.2-km junior boys race. Hofer and another runner, L.V. Rogers Secondary’s Matti Erickson, both tied for the fastest time on the course, 13:42, while Bonikowsky was fourth, in 14:09.
Both Hofer and Bonikowsky are members of Ocean Athletics.
Earl Marriott’s Micah Logie rounded out the top-10 finishes, in 10th place, with a time of 14:44, while Surrey Academy of Innovative Learning’s Caiden Lee was 11th, just one second behind Logie.
Other top-20 runs included Earl Marriott’s Hudson Irvine (13th) and Elgin Park’s Isaac Baker (16th).
In the team standings – taking into account all four races – Semiahmoo placed fifth overall, while Marriott was 11th. In the senior boys race, EMS was sixth as team, while Semiahmoo was eighth. Semiahmoo was fifth in junior girls team standings, while Earl Marriott was second among junior boys squads.
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